City Council Will Vote on Smoking Ban Repeal

by K2 News Desk, info@k2tv.com

In a surprise announcement Tuesday night, Casper Mayor Kennyne Schlager announced that she will support repealing the controversial smoking ban. Schlager scheduled a vote on the issue in less than two weeks.

The Mayor has been a longtime supporter of the ban, but says she did not want to amend it and just decided to get rid of it all together.

Schlager made the announcement near the end of Tuesday night's routine city council meeting, where the subject was not even on the agenda. Schlager told those in attendance that council members discussed the issue before the meeting and that there are now at least five if not more votes to repeal the ban.

The smoking ban went into effect last September after months of community debate. An effort to repeal the ban with a public vote failed to gather enough signatures to get it onto the November ballot.

Some bar owners say that the ban has hurt their business, as regular customers used to smoking are now going to other establishments outside the city limits.

Mayor Schlager says this will probably not be the last time the smoking issue will be brought up. She believes there will be a public vote on it, at sometime in the future. In the meantime, the council has scheduled the repeal vote for march fifth.